The Younger Brother
by Ria Saunders
Summary: Iliad fanfiction: Paris and Aeneas come to Teucros’ tent secretly in the lull after Achilles is killed. They ask him, as a kinsman, to join the Trojans. When faced with temptation, the cost of yielding is high, and there's no reward for refusing.
1. Uneasy in the Camp

There were always things to be done in the evenings, and though there were slaves to do them after the series of battles in which they'd sacked the Trojans' allies and client cities, he preferred to work alone. When he sat in his brother's tent in the evenings, watching the captive woman Tecmessa stirring the stewpot while she balanced her son on her other hip, Teucros felt queasy recognition in the sight.

His mother must have looked the same, a slim, quiet captive working at Telamon's fire. She'd always kept her almond-shaped eyes, the mark of her Asian birth, cast down in the presence of Lord Telamon's proper wife, his proper son. And Teucros, her son, had spent too little time looking at her in those years. He'd been too eager to follow his bold older brother in all of his adventures, learning from Ajax how to hunt, how to speak, and how to be a noble Achaean.

His name itself gave his strivings to be a proper Achaean the lie. Teucros was another word for Trojan. Perhaps his mother Hesione had named him, in pride at her royal heritage. Perhaps his father had named him out of pride in his conquest. Telamon had fought at the side of the great hero, Heracles of Tiryns, in the first sack of Troy. Telamon had been a mighty fighter in his day, certainly the equal of any man of the current age, even his demi-divine nephew Achilles. In the days of Heracles, however, even such a strong warrior as Telamon had been an assistant, a follower, rather than a hero in his own right. And although he had once helped to overthrow the divinely-built walls of Troy, his name was spoken less among the Danaans' tents than that of his brother, Peleus.

Teucros saw the rancor of that omission daily in his brother's temper, in Ajax' constant striving to do more and stand out among all the chieftains of the Achaeans. Ajax could never rest content. He always looked for his next battle, his next chance to prove himself above the other kings and heroes of the Argives. He never looked at Tecmessa as she tended the fire in the evenings: his eyes were always on his sword's edge, or on the latest nick in his great shield.

Men rallied to that shield in battle, the largest and heaviest in the host with its seven oxhides. On the field, when other fighters rallied round him, was the only time Teucros saw his brother content. That was the only place his pride fed itself; there he could feel himself a hero among heroes and a great-grandson of Zeus. But Ajax paid for the exaltation of those moments with black gloom at the times when the fighting ceased. Telamon's older son gave place in the Achaean's councils to almost anyone. Achilles, as nobly-spoken in council as he was fierce in war, had always had a leading voice among the chiefs; Nestor's age and wisdom commanded men's attention (and his three strapping sons would be quick to address any disrespect shown to their father); shrewd Odysseus and his partner, Diomedes, caught men's ears with their clever words and knew enough to support one another so that they often got their way, despite being among the lesser lords of the host.

Teucros smiled wryly into the guttering flames of his fire. Ajax could not accept that another lord of the Achaeans could be first in council as he desired to be first on the field. Since mighty Achilles' death, when the whole army had camped without threatening the Trojans' lines, he'd listened to the other leaders urging one course and then another with growing bitterness. Teucros, well used to councils where he had no say, had accepted the debates without question. Their golden cousin was dead, and he, Teucros, would never be foremost in battle or in council. He lived, he might get some share of the spoils in the distant event of their actually capturing the town, and he must be content with that.

On the field, many scorned the use of the bow, the weapon Teucros had the most skill with, as a coward's weapon. He stuck with it despite their jeers. He had not received the same training in war that Ajax had; his practice had been hunting with his brother rather than drilling with sword and shield. When they'd arrived in Asia, the Argive host had faced skilled archers, and he'd been very valuable, even if not very valued, against them. The Trojan archers might have put the Argives to flight many times if Teucros and the few other bowmen of their host had not provided answering fire, and it was by the bow that the Trojans had brought down Achilles, a fighter too powerful for even their strongest swordsman to best. Sometimes, alone in his tent, Teucros allowed himself to feel a perverse pride in his Trojan ancestry and his skill with the bow.

He'd spoken in the chieftains' council for the first time this very week, when archery was at issue. After Achilles' death, the threat of Paris' arrows from the walls seemed greater. The men whispered among themselves that the archer god Apollo had built those walls with his own hands to be a vantage point for a bowman, and all the Danaans remembered the plague-bearing shafts the god himself had sent against them when King Agamemnon had tried to hold the daughter of Apollo's priest as his slave. As they had during the plague the god had sent, the common soldiers had begun to say that the city could not be conquered, and that either Apollo's arrows would cut them down or Poseidon would open the earth under them before they could scale the walls that the two gods had built.


	2. Not a Battlefield

Not a Battlefield

The first men of the Danaan host packed Agamemnon's tent. The Mycenaean ruler had called the council of kings to address the rumors that ran among the men, but it was all too clear that he was once again hoping for a reason to abandon the whole enterprise. Watching him, Teucros thought, _Queen Clytemnestra must be quite a woman, for him to be so desperate to return home_. Although Agamemnon could be proud and abrasive, Teucros felt a silent sympathy for him: it must be hard to have the lead in this expedition by reason of wealth and power, but be so overmatched as a person. Six or ten of the Lords at this council were more famed as warriors, and when Achilles had been alive, no one had bothered to ask whether Agamemnon was on the field.

Beside him, Teucros could feel Ajax slumping deeper into despair. His big brother had little interest in councils, and talking that led to less fighting galled his warrior's heart. Seeing his brother's broad shoulders hunched, Teucros felt the urge to reassure him that, whatever King Agamemnon wished, the Danaans would not be going home. Too many men had spent too much time and blood on this plain to go home without the golden spoils of Troy.

Just then, however, Agamemnon rose. "Lords of the Argives, Princes of Achaea, I have called you to face this question: with our mightiest fighter fallen, how are we to conquer Priam's forces and the walls raised by the Lords of Olympus?"

The other Ajax, the son of Oileus, yelled out, "Built by the gods, my heel! It's a load of superstitious nonsense, a story put about by Priam's lying people to scare us off." His reedy, jeering voice filled the tent, but even standing to speak, he was dwarfed by the sturdier Argives who sat to either side.

"We must not disregard the gods, nor speak ill of them. That path leads to disaster," grey-bearded Nestor spoke up. "What do the omens say, Calchas?"

The prophet mumbled quickly without standing, "The omens are not clear at this time. The gods will not speak on other matters until we have buried our fallen hero with appropriate ceremony." Many of the kings looked relieved that he had nothing more to say on the matter; when Calchas spoke in specifics, it usually meant blood.

Nestor's son Thrasymedes rose to answer that. "We are ready to hold the funeral games in two days. The pleasure of the games may well ease the common men's minds more than anything we determine at this council."

A murmur of agreement went around the tent at that, and Menelaus nodded his golden head vigorously. His brother Agamemnon frowned. "How effective will the games be at cheering the men if we have no clear hope to offer them afterwards? As long as Achilles fought among them, they felt that the gods wished us to win. Now, they retell the story of Apollo and Poseidon building the city's walls, and swear that the Trojans have some secret luck token hidden in the citadel."

"Diomedes and I can scout out rumors of this luck token," Odysseus said quietly. He never needed to raise his voice to get the other kings' attention in council. "We are not afraid to cross into the Trojan allies' camp, as you recall."

"But what about the walls? If the gods built them, no man will overcome them," someone called out without standing.

Teucros looked to his brother, but Ajax had his head down. It rested on him to stand for his father's deeds. As he did, he wished that his brother had his great shield to hold over him, as he often did on the battlefield. Even without that protection, he managed to say what was needed.

"Lords of the Achaeans, Troy _can_ be conquered. Troy has been conquered, and by men of Achaea. My father, and Ajax', sacked the city when King Priam was but a boy, and brought home rich treasures. Do not ask whether we should go back to our homes, but what should we bring back to the plain of Scamander that was here the first time Ilium fell."

"Heracles!" Diomedes called out, laughing. Odysseus, standing close beside him as always, hushed his friend.

"Would you have us dig up his bones?" Agamemnon's dark eyes were round with nervous energy.

"Trouble not the dead," Calchas said, definite for once.

"Perhaps we ought to call on some of his sons to aid us," Idomeneus, the Lord of Crete, spoke in his lilting Minoan accent. Several other leaders echoed him at once.

Gerenian Nestor stood again. "They are a quarrelsome lot, scarcely worth the half of their sire, even when they all agree. Look how they fled from Eurystheus. If we are to have anything of Heracles', let us have his bow! When we started this expedition, we had it with us, and the omens were fair." All the kings listened earnestly to this advice, even though Nestor's grudge against the family of Heracles was well known.

"Philoctetes will put fear into the cowardly Trojan archer, Prince Paris!"

"Send for Philoctetes – it's time to have a strong bow on our side." The whole tent rang with support of Nestor's idea. Teucros felt pleased that what he said had led to the renewal of their enthusiasm; at the same time, gall burned in his stomach to hear his own skill as an archer ignored again.


	3. A Hero and a Prince

A Hero and a Prince

The night after the council, Teucros sat alone, examining his arrows. He was determined not to lose the archery competition at the funeral games to Meriones of Crete a second time. When he'd left Ajax' tent, his brother had been similarly intent on planning his moves for the wrestling. Of all the Achaeans, only Teucros knew how much pride and pain the draw at Patroclus' funeral games had cost Ajax.

He sighted along a shaft into his lamp, twirled it, then set it with a sigh into the pile too imperfect for the next day's contest. The other pile, where all the shafts were perfect, still held only enough arrows for a single flight. He began to sort through the imperfect arrows, looking for ones he could improve by refletching, when he felt a draft from the entrance of the tent.

"Ajax," he began, but stopped on looking up. Two strangers stood within the tent flap, wrapped up tightly in their cloaks despite the warmth of the evening.

"May we enter?" He couldn't place the man's voice, beyond a certainty that he didn't hail from any of the islands he'd visited.

"Come in and be welcome," he answered. Peaceful strangers were never refused a welcome at his father's hall. Teucros stood to fetch the wineskin. He gestured at his visitors to sit, but stopped in mid-motion. He had only the one stool, and the fire had guttered out, making him the most poorly equipped host in the Argive camp. He grabbed the wineskin and held it out in palliation.

The shorter of the two reached him first. The man accepted the offered drink, saying, "Thank you, Cousin." Teucros could only be grateful that he had not dropped the skin when his guest stepped into the lamplight. It was Paris, the Trojan prince. i I could end the war here, if I dispose of his guard and capture him . . . Ajax is less than a minute away, a single shout . . . /i He let go of those thoughts. The man had accepted his welcome and his wine. No bond was as sacred before Zeus as that between host and guest.

While Paris dripped a libation and took the customary sip of his host's offering, Teucros examined his companion. The man stood a little taller than the Prince, and his dark hair hung nearly straight over a solemn, almost painfully honest face. Not one of the King's sons, Teucros knew, but one of the nobles of the city. He searched his memory for a moment, then recalled seeing that face contorted as the man lifted up a great rock to throw.

"You are Aeneas, the one they call the goddess' son."

The taller man shrugged. "Boasting of a thing doesn't make it more or less true," he replied. "If you want to see the true favorite of the goddess, you have only to look to our kinsman, here." The lamplight caught Paris' smile at that.

The Trojan prince had been called many names in Teucros' hearing: coward, adulterer, thief. The handsome man he saw, dark-eyed and curly-haired, looked none of those things. More than that, though, Paris had a quality of brilliance about him, as Achilles had on the battlefield, or Odysseus in council. Teucros remembered a poet singing of the ancient hero Cadmos, "the goddess poured grace upon him, and made him stronger and goodly to look at." Seeing Paris' glowing confidence, even among his enemies' tents, he knew what the poet had meant.

"We've come to ask for your aid, Cousin," Paris spoke softly, a gold pin glinting in his cloak. Distantly, Teucros heard his brother's men singing at their fires. How had these elegant Asians slipped past the men of Salamis without a challenge?

"You name me 'Cousin,' but we have never met."

Paris laughed. "Your very name proclaims our kinship. Would you deny it?"

"Would i you /i claim it?" Teucros parried. He needed more time to think, more air – perhaps some of the wine. As if sensing his incipient panic, Aeneas handed back the wineskin. Teucros reflexively poured a splash for the gods, whichever might be watching this unreal scene, and drank down a healthy slug.

"The Achaeans are in disarray," Aeneas urged. "You have no great part in their force, but in Troy, you would be a hero . . . and a prince."

"With Achilles dead, it should take but one more setback to send them fleeing back to their shores," Paris added. Aeneas shot the prince a quelling look even as Teucros opened his mouth to protest the slur on his people.

"That's not what we mean," Aeneas assured him. "We've all been seeking a way to break this dreadful stalemate for the last ten years. If we could end the war and save face on both sides . . ." He spread his hands. "Many who will die otherwise can be saved."

Teucros' vision of ending the war returned, headier and more possible than before. A chance to influence the lords of Troy would mean a chance to get Helen returned to her home and her family, to see the black ships sail away to Achaea safe and with all honor, to return to his father's hall in Salamis a hero, as famous as Ajax. All the honor he had ever dreamed of, offered to him freely.

He couldn't hide his pleasure at the prospect. Paris said warmly, "In Troy, your skill with the bow would receive its true measure of honor. We Teucrians have always regarded archery as an essential art of war. Now that we have lost Hector, our strategy must change. We will need archers rather than spearmen." The laughing goddess Aphrodite had truly endowed her favorite with the gift of persuasion. Teucros felt already half-enraptured by the man's words.

"There is a place in our council for you as well," Aeneas added. "Your knowledge of Achaea and the Isles will be invaluable to us as we seek to make peace with the Lords of the Danaans."

"You don't need to be such an old woman, Anchisides," Paris interrupted. "I might as well have brought my mother, to hear all this talk of making peace. When we have my cousin's bow on our walls, we will seek victory, which any real man knows is ten times the value of peace." His warm eyes smiled at Teucros, but Telamon's son felt cold. For all of the lofty ideas Aeneas offered him, if he accepted their offer, he would soon have to use his bow against his brother and all the men he'd fought beside for so long.

With the bitterness of that realization burning in his heart, he couldn't it when Paris reached out to clasp his shoulder. Teucros shook off his cousin's hand and said coldly, "You may think that you will defeat the Danaans with archery, but we have sent for a bowman of our own. You especially, Lord Paris, will find his shafts bitter indeed."

Once his temper roused, it took little more to drive his guests from his tent. They bowed and looked over their shoulders as they left, but he resolutely turned his back. He stared into the fire, clenching his fists as if he could squeeze back the tears that ran down his cheeks, the anger, and the shame. Even as he cried, he could not decide why he wept: for daring to think of abandoning his brother, or for rejecting the dream of honor the Trojans had offered.

Epilogue

There were no good choices for Teucros. Achilles' funeral the next day ended in Ajax, the brother Teucros had followed to war, losing the contest for Achilles' armor and committing suicide in rage and disgrace. Paris died not long after when Philoctetes shot him with one of Heracles' envenomed arrows, howling in pain and rejected by his first love, the nymph Oenone. Troy fell that year, and the sack was brutal: men butchered, women and children enslaved. When Teucros led his brother's men back to their father on Salamis, Telamon disowned and exiled his younger son for failing to prevent his brother's disgrace.


End file.
